By Missy Diaz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Copyright 2007 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla — The Health Care District of Palm Beach County defamed, interfered with and conspired against a company that organizes training classes for paramedics and EMTs and therefore must pay it $692,400, a jury found Tuesday.
In 2004, Professional Medical Education -- PME--sued the Health Care District, saying claims by the district’s trauma agency director were keeping PME from hosting training classes.
The claims were included in a letter from agency director Dr. Jeff Davis to Basic Trauma Life Support of Florida -- BTLS -- the Orlando group that decides which companies can host courses. Davis’ letter stated that PME billed the district for a course it couldn’t confirm took place, according to attorney Sid Garcia, who represents PME.
“It was implying fraud and asked for an investigation,” Garcia said. “Dr. Davis also told Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue and the city of Greenacres they couldn’t use PME for the class. His motivation was to help a couple of competitors he was friendly with.”
BTLS suspended PME from hosting the training courses, Garcia said, resulting in PME losing out on a lucrative opportunity to host classes for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
“BTLS did an investigation and found no billing impropriety,” Garcia said.
Davis, who could not be reached for comment despite an attempt by telephone, also was sued in the case but was found to have acted in the course and scope of his employment, according to Garcia.
Health Care District spokeswoman Robin Kish issued this statement:
“The Health Care District of Palm Beach County is pleased that Dr. Jeff Davis was personally dismissed from the case. The district is disappointed with the verdict in light of the fact that the district has always acted as responsible stewards of the taxpayers’ money. The district is still studying the verdict in its entirety and will be reviewing all legal options.”
Health Care District attorney Barbara Sonneborn could not be reached for comment despite an attempt by telephone.
Alternate juror Lane Bauer, of Boynton Beach, said Davis testified that he only wanted the quality of PME’s classes to be investigated and that he had some “invoice issues,” but that he never used the word fraud. But Bauer said she didn’t think Davis did enough to stop a fraud investigation by BTLS.
“He didn’t do anything to prevent them from looking at fraud,” she said. “He could have done more.”